Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Bitget said its $351.6 million wallet breach bears the hallmarks of North Korean hackers as investigators race to trace and freeze stolen assets.The crypto exchange said analysis of IP activity and blockchain transactions showed the Sept. 24 attack closely matched techniques used by known North Korean hacking groups. Bitget has reported the incident to relevant authorities and enlisted blockchain security firms Mandiant and SlowMist to investigate, Chief Executive Officer Gracy Chen said.Onchain analyst Specter separately linked the XRP taken from Bitget to funds stolen during the $24 million AFX hack in July, which was attributed to the TraderTraitor cluster associated…

Four crew members from three space agencies will launch to the International Space Station no earlier than spring 2027 for a long-duration science expedition as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-14 mission. NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Chris Birch will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Makoto Suwa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Arutyun Kiviryan as mission specialists. After docking, Crew-14 will join the space station’s Expedition 75/76. This mission is the 14th commercial crew rotation with SpaceX under NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program. The crew will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for…

Food conglomerate Mondelēz International, the owner of chocolate brands Cadbury, Milka, Toblerone and Oreo, has allegedly engaged in an extensive lobbying campaign to weaken and delay enforcement of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), according to new analysis by environmental watchdog Global Witness. Under the EUDR, companies selling to the EU must show their forest products, including cocoa, were not produced on land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020. The law was originally slated to come into force in 2024 but will now be implemented from Dec. 31, 2026. The investigation by NGO Global Witness details how Mondelēz CEO…

Across the country, states have been shuttering their youth prisons as juvenile crime has plummeted and research shows the facilities are not effective at keeping youth out of trouble after release. From 2000 to 2022, the number of the highest-security facilities for kids has dropped by more than 40%, the most recent federal data shows. In contrast, Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services has budgeted $360 million to build two new facilities with a total of up to 256 new beds for youth. Construction is set to begin this fall, and they are expected to open in 2028 and 2029.  According…

25/09/2026 – 11:45Map: Pope Leo’s visit in Paris 25/09/2026 – 11:44At Élysée, pope and Macron discuss AI, euthanasia, protection of children French President Emmanuel Macron is currently hosting the pope at the Élysée Palace. Macron’s office said this morning that the meeting would provide an opportunity for the two discuss global challenges such as climate change and artificial intelligence, along with European and international affairs. They are also expected to talk about end-of-life care and the protection of children. 25/09/2026 – 11:27Pope’s packed Friday Pope Leo has a packed programme today. This is what is on his schedule:11am (although it was…

The FBI is investigating a claim by a cyber-crime group that it has stolen sensitive information on all bureau staff – around 38,000 people.The group, Shiny Hunters, says it has every agent’s name, role, badge number and personal details including home address, phone numbers and spouse information.Professor Ciaran Martin, the former head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, said – if confirmed – it was “as serious as it gets when it comes to data breaches.”In a statement posted on X, the FBI said it was aware of the claim and the agency was “actively and aggressively investigating the…

​Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget disclosed today that suspected North Korean hackers have stolen $351.6 million from its hot and warm wallets. The company discovered the breach Thursday evening after its security systems flagged multiple unauthorized transfers from a limited number of crypto wallets. Bitget has temporarily suspended all withdrawals while investigating the incident with help from law enforcement agencies, on-chain security institutions, and cybersecurity experts at Mandiant and SlowMist. It also said its self-custodial Bitget Wallet was not affected, as it operates on infrastructure independent of Bitget Exchange and was not impacted by the attack, and added that the User Protection…

Bitquery flagged $117.7 billion in Solana DEX trades in a 30-day sample, where repeated round trips supplied much of the recorded turnover. The blockchain data company’s Sept. 24 reconstruction challenges using gross volume as a stand-in for demand from independent traders.It leaves a question of how much an outside user could actually trade at a useful price in the same pools.From Aug. 24 through Sept. 22, Bitquery examined $201.4 billion in trades it could value in dollars across Solana pools it indexes. Its rules classified 58.4% of that sample as circular or botlike, and about $111.6 billion of the flagged…

In mid-September 2026, Hurricane Polo began as a tropical disturbance off the Pacific coast of Mexico. By September 20, it was organized enough to qualify as a tropical depression, and by the next day it was a tropical storm. From there, Polo launched into a period of rapid intensification that left meteorologists searching for adjectives strong enough to convey what was happening. Some described the storm’s rate of intensification and strength as “jaw-dropping,” others as “astonishing,” and others as “absolute insanity.”   “Polo went through a period of what can only be described as explosively rapid intensification,” said Gary Partyka,…

In an editorial in Science, U.S.-based energy policy experts Paasha Mahdavi and Michael Ross argue that governments creating consumer fossil fuel subsidies in response to rising energy prices is the “worst energy policy in the world.” Mahdavi, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the U.S., and Ross, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, write that following increasing fossil fuel prices due to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, many countries have adopted subsidies for consumers that keep fossil fuel prices low. The governments finance the gap through other means like taxes,…